Reports have indicated that organised Labour has thrashed it’s earlier demand of ₦494,000 new national minimum wage.
According to Punch, they may now settle for ₦100,000 as the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage commences daily meetings for five days to reach a consensus.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu gave the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, a 48-hour ultimatum to come up with the cost implications on the new minimum wage.
Multiple sources who spoke to the aforementioned publication said that union leaders were willing to review their demand from ₦494,000 to ₦100,000, following the criticism and controversy that trailed their proposal which was considered outrageous and unrealistic.
A senior NLC official confirmed that Labour had not formally presented its final offer to the tripartite committee, but they would insist on ₦100,000 minimum wage.
He stated, “Today’s (Tuesday) meeting was essentially to set an agenda and plan how to complete the assignment within the five days.
The government representatives did not mention a raise in the N60, 000. They just set the agenda on what to do and how to go about the negotiation. There was no mention of any increment. But labour planned to close the negotiation on N100,000 minimum wage.’’
The Deputy Head of NLC Political Commission, Prof. Theophilus Ndubuaku, also confirmed that the Tuesday tripartite meeting on minimum wage was to draw an agenda for the daily meetings.
“We met today (Tuesday) to draw up an agenda for the one-week daily meeting. We met today and drew the agenda because the agreement was that we meet daily for the meet one week and on our own, we said we are relaxing the strike not even suspending it.
It’s more like putting everybody on red alert. It means we are not going to give any notice. Which means by this time next week, we are going on strike. There is a difference between relax and suspend. Relax is to stay on your duty post and put your hands on the trigger. It is tomorrow (today) that we are expecting the government to submit another proposal,’’ he explained.
